Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/orange-county-homeless/)
The County of Orange will finally get homeless people into a hotel in South County after an OC Superior Court judge looks unconvinced by Laguna Hills efforts to stop the county from housing people there during the novel coronavirus pandemic, which has killed 33 people as of Monday.
As of Monday, 14 people have died from the novel coronavirus in Orange County and 130 are hospitalized as the number of confirmed cases reached 882 out of roughly 10,500 people tested.
County officials are rolling out a mixture of tents, trailers and hotel/motel rooms to help shelter homeless people around Orange County during the novel coronavirus pandemic. The move is expected to thin some of the overcrowded homeless shelters.
Orange County officials are scrambling to come up with a plan to combat the novel coronavirus for its main walk-in homeless shelter, where 450 people are living in tight quarters, a converted Santa Ana bus terminal that’s struggling to keep people separated from each other.
CalOptima counted 10,000 of its members as homeless in Orange County. The count is 3,200 higher than the roughy 6,800 homeless people counted by the County in January.
Supervisor Andrew Do said the County isn’t looking to take over CalOptima, the health insurance plan for the poor, but he offered a spending plan, along with criticism, for the agency.
The nearly 7,000 people officially homeless n Orange County should be a wake up call to the County and all 34 cities to start building affordable and permanent supportive housing, in addition to shelters, according to experts in the field.
Medical field teams will treat homeless people living on the streets after a federal judge pressured CalOptima — the county insurance plan for the poor and elderly — which also last week earmarked $100 million to homeless services.
Homeless people now will be visited and treated by medical teams on the streets after the CalOptima Board of Directors unanimously voted to immediately begin the program throughout Orange County.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, after years of rapid growth in Orange County homeless deaths, issued an emergency request this week describing a “public health crisis in the County leading to the deaths of hundreds of people experiencing homelessness.”